The family of Ben Van Handel, who was killed by driver Timothy Bakdash, including Ben's sister Rachel, 21, far left, his mother Ann and father Steve are surrounded by supporters as they speak to the media following the sentencing of Bakdash in Hennepin County Court on April 16, 2012. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

The family of Ben Van Handel, who was killed by driver Timothy Bakdash, spoke to the media following the sentencing of Bakdash in Hennepin County Court on April 16, 2012. From left, Rachel, 21, sister of Ben, mother Ann and father Steve Van Handel. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

A judge sentenced Timothy Bakdash of Roseville to 40 years in prison Monday, April 16, for running down Benjamin Van Handel after a night of heavy drinking at a Dinkytown bar. He also injured two women.

Van Handel’s head hit the side of a utility pole after he was carried several feet on the hood of Bakdash’s car. Van Handel, 23, of Appleton, Wis., was walking a friend home from a bar after closing time in April 2011.

Van Handel was a month away from graduating from the University of Minnesota with a degree in economics; he aspired to be a Major League Baseball statistician. He suffered severe brain damage and died five days later.

Bakdash, who turned 30 on Friday, was convicted in March of second-degree murder, felony murder and criminal vehicular homicide. A jury found him guilty on nine counts in the death of Van Handel and the injury of the two women.

Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Christina Warren asked Hennepin County District Judge Daniel Mabley for a sentence of more than 38 years. She cited “the severity of the current offense, the impact the defendant’s senseless actions have had and continue to have on the victims and their families, and the defendant’s failure to accept responsibility for these offenses.”

But she also said that, depending on how the counts are added up, Bakdash could be sentenced to 51 years.

When he testified in his own defense at the trial, Bakdash apologized to Van Handel’s family, who spent every day of the trial seated in the front row of the gallery.

“I made a mistake. I was drunk. I don’t know why I got in the car. I’m sorry to the families for what happened,” he told them.

He told jurors he didn’t intend to kill or hurt anyone.

Bakdash, an electronics technician by trade, has a history of substance abuse and treatment dating to age 11, according to court records. His defense was that he was too drunk to form the intent and premeditation the law requires for first-degree murder, the charge he was tried on.

Jurors concluded his actions were intentional but not premeditated.

Bakdash had testified that he and a friend spent the evening of April 14, 2011, drinking at the Library Bar. By his own estimation, he downed at least 15 mixed drinks and three shots of Jagermeister, a 70-proof liqueur, between 10:30 p.m. and 1:50 a.m.

He said that as he got up to leave the bar, “I was kind of in and out of reality. I started spinning a little bit. I was drunk.”

He claimed that as he and his friend walked to his car, a stranger approached him and challenged him to fight, slapping him on both cheeks before walking away.

When he got into his car, Bakdash thought he saw the man walking down the sidewalk along Southeast Fifth Street, so he pulled out of the parking lot, turned the wrong way down the one-way street, slowed to roll over the curb, got onto the sidewalk and stomped the accelerator.

He said he meant to scare the man, not hit him.

There were three groups of people walking down the sidewalk. The man Bakdash was aiming for – who testified he never even spoke to Bakdash – jumped clear.

As the 2004 Mitsubishi Galant gained speed, it struck Sarah Anne Bagley, then a senior at the U; she landed on the hood of the car and rolled off.

Katelynn Marie Hanson, also a senior at the school, was hit as well.

Van Handel was farther down the sidewalk, escorting a neighbor, Leslie Falk, home from a bar. She told jurors she heard a car revving behind them, turned and saw the oncoming vehicle.

Falk said that she called Van Handel’s name and that, just as she reached out to pull him out of the way, the car hit him and carried him off on the hood.

When Bakdash got to the corner, the man’s head struck the utility pole, leaving a dent that remains. Van Handel flew off the car and landed in the intersection.

Bakdash sped off; he was at home and in bed by 2:30 a.m. Six hours later, he arrived at the wireless communications business in Burnsville where he worked.

He was arrested a few days later.

Bagley, who used a cane to walk through her graduation in May, has filed a personal-injury suit against Bakdash; his mother, Diane O’Grady; and the Library Bar. The case is scheduled for trial in November.

Bakdash’s mother owned the car he was driving, and the Library Bar served him the drinks he consumed. Two of the bar’s assistant managers who were on duty that night testified at trial that they didn’t believe Bakdash was intoxicated.

In a deposition she gave in the civil suit, Bakdash’s mother said that after her son came out of treatment for cocaine addiction, he researched ways to increase his tolerance to alcohol.

That online research led him to a mixture of vitamins and medications that would let him drink more heavily, she said.

That information did not come up at the criminal trial.

His mother, a certified psychiatric/mental health nurse, said in her deposition that over the years her son had undergone a variety of chemical dependency evaluations and treatments, and none seemed to work.

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